It’s a Matter of the Heart

As I gingerly sit up to write while recovering from a recent surgical procedure, I am filled with grateful, waxing awe of the miraculous artistry our medical community can perform.  At the same time, I am filled with dreadful, increasing disdain for this devilishly engineered SARS-CoV2 virus.

Considering I may have hit the coronavirus trifecta by wrestling this man-made beast on three separate occasions, I have conveniently become my own unofficial test trial.  The results are still coming in, but the statistics you have read about myocarditis are true.

Out of nowhere, my resting heart rate had near doubled, and going for a run suddenly felt like someone was holding my head underwater.  For two months, I ditched the heart rate monitor and pretended it would improve.  It refused.  I finally went to the Walk-in Clinic and four erratic EKGs later, I had to agree to either find a cardiologist right away or go directly to the ER.

I remain immovably convinced in my decision to renounce and reject the dead-baby vaccines — not only in solidarity with the uncountable heart-still-beating babies who had their organs harvested from them as they died but also with the blossoming revelations of the vaccine’s cataclysmic inefficacy against this Wuhan soup du jour.

Evolutionary biology will insist on a whole lot more than a sloppy wet market and a sneezy bat to develop a brilliantly resilient, highly adaptive, world-slaying virus like this.

To the chagrin of our media elites, the mounting evidence proves this NIH-funded bioweapon whacks the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.  Whether you are infected with the pathogen or injected with the potation, the common denominator is the calamitous spike protein.  

This is why my cardiologist, fully armed with comprehensive patient data, confirmed to me that when it comes to the jab; 

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” 

In only 300 words, I have intentionally triggered all those who pledge allegiance to the vaccine and defend the innocence of Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci, and the Wuhan Lab.  So as the flamethrower is primed in my direction, the moment is ripe to explore the growing and maddening cultural phenomena I tried to examine in my last piece:  Is Christ Divided or Is It Just Us.

Why is the mere talking about ideas and beliefs tearing our citizenry apart along deep fault lines and taking the church along with it?

I remember a time not long ago when people were confident to declare their deeply held, personal beliefs, opinions, and positions without risk of being judged a bad person.  Robust debate and rigorous defense of ideas is not only a bedrock of a civil society but a valuable process to sift falsity from truth.  

Or perhaps civility itself is no longer a collective aspiration?

My wife bought me a T-shirt that I love wearing around town.  It has the legendary quote from Dr. Jordan Peterson when he was interviewed by Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News.   After relentlessly attempting to trap Peterson by repeatedly misstating him, she asked him why his right to freedom of speech should trump another’s right to not be offended:

Because in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.

~ Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

Being offensive and being offended are two entirely different things.

As I enter my second year of trying to publicly put thoughts to pixels, I have learned that each time I click “Publish”, I enter the arena of Risk being offensive.  Undoubtedly, I poke the social bears most of us would rather not mention at the neighborhood block party or the Thanksgiving table.  

But why should we be reluctant to say what we believe?  Better yet, why should we be reluctant to say what we know to be true?  While not everything is a dualistic proposition, truth doesn’t lie and darkness doesn’t shine.

I have written about politics, systemic racism, the vaccines, white supremacy, Christian nationalists, LGBTQIA2+, abortion, infidelity, and wokeness (uncomfortable yet?).  

I’ve also written a great deal about the Kingdom of God, resurrection, unity, forgiveness, the reconciliation of all things, revival in the Philippines sex trade, worship, and preaching (uncomfortable yet?)

I don’t write on these topics to be provocative as much to provoke thought.

Inherent to each of these polarizing topics comes not only the risk of being offensive but worse; the risk of being canceled.  And I’m not talking about a Twitter suspension, Facebook ban, or any other action within the simulation.  I am talking about real life.  I am talking about real families and friends being torn apart, real churches being weakened, and real jobs being lost as the willful practice of intolerance and heel digging become more and more fierce.

The fact that these topics are deemed not safe to discuss indicates to me we should be talking about them more, not less.  If preservation of power and control is the goal, then sure; less is preferable.  But if truth is the goal, why potentially settle for lies when the truth is the only thing that truly sets us free?

…some of the lies we tell ourselves are the very structure that gives life meaning.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche 

Pilate was close to relinquishing his enslavement to lies when the embodiment of Truth stood before him.  With an innocent man’s life in the balance, Pilate asked Jesus: 

What is truth?

~ John’s Gospel, Ch. 18

Every day, we have the potentiality to bring life or death into a moment — most often through our words.  How often has the embodiment of Truth stood before us but for fear of the mob, like Pilate, we turn around and walk away before hearing the answer?

It’s a Matter of the Heart

This fiendish spike protein has a gained function to wreak unique havoc on our biology.  By distributing and concentrating in specific areas of the body, our immune response surrounds the pathogen with inflammation.  The problem is, inflammation itself can be very destructive to the body.  In my case, to the inner wall of the left ventricle.

A simple search on the Google Archipelago yields the following description:

When your body encounters an offending agent (like viruses, bacteria, or toxic chemicals) it activates your immune system and sends out its first responders:  Inflammatory cells...  

An “offending agent.”  To be clear; just because someone presents an agent we find to be offensive, the choice to become offended is an entirely separate matter.  One is outside our control, the other is entirely within. 

In the case of Atrial Flutter, the inflammation damaged the highly conductive tissue on the inside of my heart.   The result?  A rogue electrical current formed a new circuit that not only changed the beating of the chamber, but it also wrecked the God-designed rhythm of the entire heart.  The other three chambers could not perform their functions, my blood was no longer being properly oxygenated, and the heart was working twice as hard to be half as efficient.  

The doctor said one doesn’t die from the Flutter but if left untreated, the patient’s heart will simply fail much sooner.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

~ Proverbs

The healing magnificence of an Ablation eliminates the looping current by burning into the conductive tissue damaged by the offending agent.  

As I watched the video of my beating heart I noticed no two areas look alike. Each chamber has a different size and shape, each valve flips and flops independently, and the pooling and pushing of blood are a well-coordinated sloshing from one chamber to the next.  

This powerful metaphor displays the glory of perfect unity.  The parts don’t have to look the same, behave the same, or think the same for unity to thrive.  But in order for this symphony of rhythm to manifest, each part must be pure, full of health, and free from any offending agent.

Imagine; one microscopic offending agent caused one tiny villainous electrical current and suddenly prevented my entire heart from functioning as designed.  And the whole body suffered for it.  

I wonder if these seemingly offensive topics are truly as incendiary as we think they are?  Or, could it be we have been systematically trained on the pathogenic landscapes of social media, political debate, and propaganda news to not only carry offense — but nurture it.  

May we be bold to think deeply and speak loudly in pursuit of truth.  May we learn to keenly use the burning heat of truth to bring healing to the heart of a matter.  May we allow others the freedom to risk being offensive.  And may we learn to guard our own hearts against being offended. 

Blessed is he who is not offended by me

~ Jesus